Recently there has been much interest and success in the development of photolytic atomic iodine 1.315 micron lasers. Germany's Asterix pulsed photolytic iodine laser routinely produces single shot energies of 1.0 kilojoule in less than 1 nsec giving terawatt power-levels. Other scientists have also reported very high performance using explosively compressed inert gas flashlamps. Likewise, research on cw photolytic atomic iodine lasers at 1.315 microns has demonstrated remarkable progress. Pulsed energies greater than 70 joules per pulse at 0.5 Hz have been demonstrated in the lowest order unstable resonator mode along with excellent coherence length, beam quality, and polarization. In addition, pulsed high energy, photolyric iodine laser technology has been advanced to a simple and reliable operation employing an iodine (I.sub.2) removal flow system. The pulsed photolytic iodine source has been used as a coherent illumination source for long-range imaging experiments. Because of the need for compactness in a non-laboratory environment, an improved system eliminating the volume associated with a closed flow loop is required.